AT OSTEND 



sitting-room on the Friday after the National, but 

 later he had to go in to Liverpool, and I spent an hour 

 or two in his absence with Robert Evett — he of the 

 exquisite pure tenor voice ; they were together. 

 George Edwardes told me that evening that he thought 

 he had something to bet on the next day in a race. 

 That was Abelard II. He failed badly, and afterwards, 

 as I have said, found his way through Sloan to Belgium. 

 That was in 1910. " T.," as his friends call Lord 

 Torrington, did wonders with the horse, and also with 

 others. Abelard II., when winning his last race in 

 Belgium, actually carried eleven stone two pounds and 

 won a race on the flat — a bit of a record, if you think 

 of it. 



In the early autumn of that year Abelard was put 

 into the Cambridgeshire, where he only got six to nine. 

 In the meantime his owner had left Belgium for 

 England to take delivery of a big new Itala racing 

 car ; he also bought a torpedo-shaped two-seater the 

 same week. There was the important discussion 

 whether Abelard II. could win the Cambridgeshire. 

 Torrington was very anxious that his horse should come 

 over to England and finish his preparations in this 

 country, but there had been a little misunderstanding 

 with Sloan, and I was to go over to Brussels to see if 

 matters could be adjusted, for Torrington had backed 

 his horse to win — well, at least fifty thousand pounds. 

 Prior to going, however, the Leger had to be seen, and 

 a little party of us stayed at Woodhall Spa, Lincoln- 

 shire, and motored to Doncaster each day. It was a 

 long journey, nearly ninety miles each way, but this 

 was nothing to the fearless motorist. Of course there 

 was only one thing for me to do, to get the work off 

 from the course, for it was doubtful some evenings what 

 time we should get back for dinner. On Leger Day I 



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